The invention relates to the scanning and digitization of images, and more specifically, to the scanning and digitization of x-ray images.
When x-ray film is produced, a layer of photographic colloid, normally gelatin, containing silver bromide crystals is rolled onto a transparent plastic support. The rolling process, combined with the polarity of the crystals and their granularity, tends to orient the majority of the essentially octahedral crystals in a predetermined pattern or grain in the film. The crystals tend to be birefringent, or doubly refracting.
When passed through a sheet of standard x-ray film, light can become scattered and its polarization rotated due to interaction of the light with the silver bromide crystals in the emulsion. Scanners that digitize x-ray film typically record this light with little to no processing or filtering. The result is that the scanned image is diffused, that is, it is not as sharply defined as the original image. This effect is often referred to as xe2x80x9cedge bloomingxe2x80x9d (i.e., fizziness).
When reflected from a sheet of standard x-ray film, the different polarization components of light can reflect unequally off the sheet. This unequal reflection results in glare from the image, which diminishes the quality of an image recorded from the reflected light.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an improved method and apparatus for recording images.
It is yet a further object of the invention to improve recorded images by minimizing or eliminating edge effects from recorded features.
It is yet a further object of the invention to improve recorded images by minimizing or eliminating glare from the recorded image.
These and other objects are achieved by an imaging recording method including applying a light to an image to produce imaged light, passing the imaged light through a filter unit to provide filtered light, and recording the filtered light on an optical detector to produce a recorded image. The filter unit comprises a first filter that is polarization selective and a second filter that is wavelength selective.
This invention also relates to an imaging recording system including a scanner for applying a light to an image to produce imaged light, a filter unit for filtering the imaged light to provide filtered light, and an optical detector for recording the filtered light to produce a recorded image. The filter unit comprises a first filter that is polarization selective and a second filter that is wavelength selective.
The image can be an opaque, transparent, and/or translucent object, document, and/or photograph. In a preferred embodiment, this image is a films, an more preferably an x-ray films.
Moreover, the above objects and advantages of the invention are illustrative, and not exhaustive, of those which can be achieved by the invention. Thus, these and other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description herein, both as embodied herein and as modified in view of any variations which will be apparent to those skilled in the art.